Teach the SDGs to your Students in a Fun (and free) Way

It’s no secret that the world is at a tipping point.

Huge global issues like climate change, poverty and inequality are driving government policy, changes in society and developments in education. But how do we engage students in world issues and how do we make it stick?!

Well, the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals provide the perfect opportunity.

This set of objectives provides every country with a blueprint of how we can solve global problems and create a more sustainable world.

And if you want to engage your students in these Global Goals, our advice is to make it fun, entertaining and often quite silly. To help you, we have highlighted 7 fun and free ways to teach your students the SDGs.

Get them to read How Bad are Bananas

Okay, How Bad are Bananas is not specifically about the SDGs but it does cover one of the most important themes – climate change.

Mike Berners-Lees’ brilliant book examines the main cause of climate change – CO2e emissions. This is a very light-hearted read that will encourage your students to gauge their daily carbon emissions.

Together you discover how much damage space travel imparts, the exact CO2 emissions from flying and how environmentally damaging closing your door is (seriously, that is a thing). You could also go one step further and play the how bad are bananas game with them.

This is basically like higher or lower – you need to guess which has the highest carbon footprint. We play this with students who travel with us. By putting them into teams it becomes highly competitive, makes them laugh and truly engages them.

Play SDG card games with students

One of the stand-out beauties of the SDGs is the colorful logos. Pat on the back for the United Nations marketing team there. The alluring colors and lovely fonts make it easy for students to read and understand the SDGs and you can use this by playing card games with them. Here are some to try out – https://go-goals.org/downloadable-material/.

Emulate Shark Tank (or Dragons Den for all those readers in the UK)

Emulating the popular TV show Shark Tank is a great way to develop your students’ presenting and teamwork skills. You could get them to think of viable solutions to the SDGs or individual SDGs and present their solutions to the teachers or fellow students.

This could also work for impactful project ideas or even business ideas that work to help solve the SDGs. This could be a simple and fun exercise. Or if you have some spare budget, you could actually give the winning group some investment to actually start a project!

Create a funny and weird debate

A debate is always a great idea to develop your students’ knowledge of any subject and this is certainly the case for the SDGs. Why not give them imaginary roles or get them to position themselves on the side of opposite-looking businesses or tv personalities? You could pit the Amazon rainforest against Shell Oil company.

You could put Wall Street against charities or NGOs or even Greta Thunberg against Donald Trump (not that this is an unreal situation, go on Greta!).

Challenge THEM to make it fun

As experienced educators, you know that student buy-in on any subject increases substantially when they are empowered to make the rules or take ownership of an activity. You could get them to create activities or classroom projects and give them simple directions like make it fun, use your creative imagination etc.

Listen to a hilarious podcast

Okay, again this is not exactly solely focused on the SDGs but rather one problem – climate action. Laughter is the best form of education here as this Climate Change podcast aims to increase awareness about carbon emissions and our carbon footprint through comedy.

During this 47-minute episode, the three presenters play hilarious games and explore the carbon footprint of funny things like hair gel.

Show Greta as you have never seen before

Learning about this iconic climate activist, Greta Thunberg, doesn’t have to be layered in protests, arguments with governments around the world and getting arrested. Show students a lighter side of Greta with this video showing her on the Russell Howard show. 

Engage them with likeable pioneers from around the world

Warning: this includes a shameless plug. If you love those ideas, why not join one of Kagumu’s SDG webinars led by experts, pioneers and innovators from around the world. Each online experience is tailored to the audience and engages students with presentations, games and calls to action!